Alabama President Robert Witt: "We are in the process of preparing our Notice of Appeal."

We mentioned earlier today that Alabama officials were planning to appeal the NCAA's ruling on its violations of textbook disbursement policy. Well, just a few minutes ago, we received the official word from Dr. Robert Witt.

"The University of Alabama will appeal the sanctions announced on June 11 by the NCAA Committee on Infractions regarding violations of the NCAA's policies on textbooks for student-athletes," Witt said. "We appreciate that the Committee recognized the isolated nature of this violation as well as UA's immediate and aggressive actions to correct the situation as soon as we discovered the problem."

That wasn't all.... But it's worth noting that Alabama has not yet sent its appeal to the NCAA. This is just saying that it will appeal. So they could appeal the whole thing or parts of the ruling.

Witt continued:

"However, we are disappointed with the excessiveness of the sanctions in view of the facts of this case and the penalties in other textbook infractions cases. There is no evidence or allegations of other NCAA violations; no coaches or administrators were involved; no players obtained books and sold them for cash, and all the books were returned or charged to the student's account as required by the UA textbook policy in effect at that time."

"We are in the process of preparing our Notice of Appeal and will file it prior to the 15-day deadline (June 26). The University of Alabama remains committed to doing things the right way, and we will continue to work with the NCAA and the SEC as we focus on strict compliance with all NCAA regulations."